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I lived in South Africa for 24 years - a place that now has 20,000 murders per year (42 million population).
No-one I know in SA has a gun. There have been too many bad stories of fathers shooting their kids by accident when an intruder enters the house. Secure your home, be sensible about the areas you go to and you should be fine. Furthermore, so many crimes are committed by people using stolen guns - guns stolen from individuals and homes.
As for hunting. i used to do a bit of that, then i grew up. It is a ridiculous activity: pathetic and hopelessly mismatched. Unless you're killing out of necessity for food, i don't see how you can justify it.
"The point is to deter attack."
- - I totally agree that we should do all we can in that regard, and I do.
"Use preventative measures instead of waiting until you're attacked to do something that is considerably more dangerous to you and your family."
- - OK, but if all that fails and someone actually DOES invade your home... ???
"If you're planning is so short term as to start at the point of invasion, then you're missing the boat."
- - And if you're ass-u-ming that no one will ever break into your house - and therefore NOT planning what to do in that contingency - you're leaving a hole in your personal defense network.
I had two "home" invasions while I was in college. One turned out to be a drunk who sobered up quickly when my dog cornered him, another was a druggy with a stolen hunting rifle. He came within a gnats whisker of shooting me, and then my dog. Her menacing growl caused him to move his sights from me to her, and just before he got to her, I grabbed the barrel lf the gun and then beat him senseless.
So I decided to live in a better neighborhood. I bought a nice country home with a pool and three acres of land adjacent to a forest preserve seventeen miles outside of Baltimore, and one day I came home to find my house had been burglarized. A few weeks later, I came home and noticed some suspicious activity behind my nearest neighbor's house and went to investigate (armed). I apprehended two youths who turned out to be the same ones who had broken into my place. People I worked with couldn't believe that we could have burglaries in my idyllic neighborhood, but it can happen. The boys had weapons, but no match for what I had.
Tell me this, if you're so sure gun ownership is a bad idea, don't you think you should have a sign outside your home announcing your belief to the world:
"This is a gun free zone. Homeowner believes in non-violence"
You could display that and I'll post my "Brinks Security" decal, my "Irish Wolfhounds of the West Coast" membership decal, and my NRA decal, and we'll see whose house gets robbed. Wanna take a wager on how that would turn out?
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
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I deter invasions by not buying anything worth stealing and keeping my house looking like shit. However, this may make me more vulnerable to a neighborhood gang attack.
A nice country home with a pool...that is just beggin for it...
"I deter invasions by not buying anything worth stealing and keeping my house looking like shit. However, this may make me more vulnerable to a neighborhood gang attack."
- - For a while, I used to deter that sort of thing by convincing everyone that I was crazy. I've started using that strategy again!!
"A nice country home with a pool...that is just beggin for it..."
- - That and a nice German sedan... What was I thinkin?
I figured I lived so far out in the boonies (in 1974, 17 miles up Hwy 7 from Balteemore was BFE) that the burglars wouldn't find me. It was redneck territory, and ALL my neighbors had shotguns within easy reach. I figured the commute was too tough and the burglars would be more likely to head for Owings Mills, where the big money was...
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
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You don't think the South Africa ruthlessly treated it's citizens had more to do with that murder rate than guns?
customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.
"Killing an un-armed person is cool? I must not be "with it" anymore..."
Okay, I get it; the badguy becomes unarmed once I slap the weapon out of his hands. How cruel of me to kill an un-armed person!!
On second thought it might be a better idea not to slap the weapon out of his hands, be faster on the draw and pop him one time through the running lights.....I'd save some ammo as well.
**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**
"Tell me this, if you're so sure gun ownership is a bad idea, "
Man Elwood, you never learn do you? Read my posts before making up whatever you want about what I think. I have repeatedly said in this thread that I don't care if you own a gun or not. I have repeatedly said that I am not an advocate of passing laws to take your guns away.
"This is a gun free zone. Homeowner believes in non-violence"
I've never said I believe in non-violence. Do you remember the part where I told you I was in the military?
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)
"I've never said I believe in non-violence. Do you remember the part where I told you I was in the military?"
Sure. but you've been going on and on about how people shouldn't carry guns. Call me crazy, but that seems anti-gun to me. Or are you just against ME being armed...
Can't say as I'd blame you!
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...
"Sure. but you've been going on and on about how people shouldn't carry guns. Call me crazy, but that seems anti-gun to me. Or are you just against ME being armed... "
You're crazy. I haven't once said that people shouldn't carry guns. I've been saying that the argument that Americans are safer with guns is not one that I buy. Try to separate the two issues. Also, anti-gun and anti-violence are not the same thing, and I'm neither.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)
"You're crazy."
- - Sorry, that's not a scoop...
"I haven't once said that people shouldn't carry guns."
- - My bad, I thought that was what you were inferring.
"I've been saying that the argument that Americans are safer with guns is not one that I buy."
- - And my point is that they are, and it should be obvious. Have you read John Lott's report? (And don't tell me it's been discredited, because it hasn't.)
"Try to separate the two issues. Also, anti-gun and anti-violence are not the same thing, and I'm neither. "
- - I'm both, but under the right conditions I can go for either. I don't carry, but I feel better knowing my GF has three at home when I'm away, and she knows how to use them!! Hopefully she never will, but remember - Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...
""I've been saying that the argument that Americans are safer with guns is not one that I buy."
- - And my point is that they are, and it should be obvious. Have you read John Lott's report? (And don't tell me it's been discredited, because it hasn't.)
"
Well, there are credible sources on both sides of this issue, so I don't think it's all that obvious, otherwise there wouldn't be so much debate on the subject. . You don't think it's been discredited because you believe what he says. I don't know if it has or not because I haven't read everything there is to read on the subject.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)
"I don't know if it has or not because I haven't read everything there is to read on the subject."
I don't claim to read everything on the subject, because I'm not emotionally involved and don't have any desire to carry. However:
The anti-gun folks throw out statistics like: 13 kids a day die from gunshots, when their definition of "kids" is anyone under 21, thus including gang-bangers, and they attempt to give the impression that their number represents kids (like three-year-olds) blowing their little brother's brains out with dad's gun that wasn't properly secured. The fact is that the number has never exceeded 20 in a year and I think it was 6 in 2000. More kids die falling out of apartment windows.
Lott's studies may or may not be pure, and he may be pushing an agenda. I don't know that he is, and I don't know that he isn't. But he and many conservative, 2nd Amendment sites list numbers of crimes prevented by armed civilians, and it's significant. Certainly nothing to be dismissed as irrelavent, and certainly more noteworthy than six kids dying because they found dad's gun. I'm not saying six dead kids is nothing, but c'mon, our population is over 500,000 times that number.
In addition, I've read and debated the stats on Australias increase in crime since all the guns have been outlawed. Oddly (or predictably) now only the outlaws have guns, and they're finding they're "job" easier. Statistics would seem to strongly imply that crooks are emboldened knowing that Joe Homeowner doesn't have firepower on the other side of that door.
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...